Innovative culture with top-notch benefits and hard work required
Pros
Absci's focus is on achieving corporate goals and ensuring employees are happy. The use of AI is real here - you're encouraged to use tools and systems that aid your work (and to do so using company-offered licenses). I'm encouraged to suggest new ideas and then run with them. If you work hard and can be innovative, you're rewarded with more opportunities and more acknowledgement. It's very reminiscent of the best part of working for SaaS companies before times got tough. Working in the office is great! It's beautiful, well-maintained, thoughtfully designed (yes, the whiskey bar in the library is real and the fireplace does turn on with a switch), and provides me a great gym as well. They've really tried to make it as comfortable as possible, which is why it feels more like an AI company and less like a biotech...until you look across the atrium with the pickleball court and dogs playing and get a peek at the scientists working in our wet labs, which takes up I think about half of the entire site. It's huge. Free breakfast and lunch and amazing coffee. Great fresh food that's also healthy. And some really nice co-workers that enjoy each other. I have to admit that I'm really excited about the hair-loss clinical trial! The benefits are the best I've ever had, and that runs the gamut from great benefits for eyeware and vision care to all the standard medical plans but also includes wellness benefits, like Wellhub (amazing gym options), and access to paid versions of apps like MyFitnessPal, and online therapy that is actually affordable. They match my 401k contribution. They push on us that we each have education/development money available for us to spend, and give trainings on how to sign up for these programs. The business has a really interesting drug in clinical trials that has buzz in the market, which isn't easy to do these days. We have GREAT potential right now and the train is gaining momentum.
Cons
Absci is trying to find its footing; there is no such thing as an average day. If you like having a set path with a set number of assignments or going through a chain of command, you will not be super comfortable at first. We're working hard and that can mean long hours. It also can mean that even though you have unlimited PTO, you feel a sense of responsibility to keep working when you probably should take a couple days off. Pay increases are set % amounts (from what I've been told) so any big increase will only come with a promotion. There have been layoffs, as with just about every similar-size company, and that creates extra work without a lot of great documentation to help you take the work on of coworkers that you miss.
